November 5, 2015

THE BLIND REVIEWER:

I’ll start with a confession: I read the Shannara books before I read
Tolkien.

I knew all about Lord of the Rings. I'd seen the truncated Ralph Bakshi cartoon
version and my older brother was somewhat obsessed with the book… Ah, but did
you actually read that handsome red hardback edition, fella? I have my doubts.

But I didn't reach Middle Earth’s
shores until 1995. One year earlier, I took a chance on The Sword of Shannara.

Swords, sorcery and heroic fantasy
seemed to be everywhere in the early-mid 1980s, when I was a youngster. John
Milius’ fantastic Conan The Barbarian adaptation
in 1982 led a slew of big budget fantasy films, ranging from blood and boobs
schlock such as The Sword and the
Sorcerer, to Marc Singer prancing around in a loincloth with a pair of
ferrets on his shoulders in Beastmaster,
to supercharged fairy tales such as Krull
and Neverending Story.

I found these a little bit of a
ballache, though I was maybe a couple of years too young for them.

Roll one die; if you get a 6, you start to give a
f*ck;

Roll a 1 to start making up your own rules;

If you get a 2, sack this nonsense off.

In America, the board-bound phenomenon
of Dungeons and Dragons took off, delaying sexual experience for many players
for years. And let’s not forget He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, mincing
their way across children’s hour TV screens in that signature Filmation style.

It’s difficult to know where this 1980s
movement started, unless we want to point fingers at Tolkien 30 years earlier.
Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara, which first appeared in 1977, is as good
a starting point as any.

I bought a copy when I was 17, heading
off on an exciting quest of my own at the end of my first year at university, to
visit a friend in the magical realm of Doncaster.

I was gradually climbing out of the
horror fiction hole I’d fallen into in the previous couple of years and
branching out into other kinds of yarn. Having spent my first, chaotic academic
year grappling with texts read out of obligation rather than desire, it was
nice to cool my head in a bucket of sticky, fizzy pop.

The Del Rey doorstopper followed Shea
Ohmsford’s quest to bring peace and justice to a place of mystical and heroic
fantasy - the Four Lands.

Had I read Tolkien first, I might
have noticed a few odd things about The
Sword of Shannara. There’s a dark
lord, the Warlock King. He has strange, demonic hooded servants, called Skull Bearers. The hero, Shea Ohmsford - who
lives in a peaceful, somewhat lazy
bucolic land called Shady Vale - is a descendant of an Elven King, and part of the House of Shannara.

Shea is entrusted with a quest by a wizard named Allanon (surely to god,
that’s intentional?): to find a magical
object which can destroy the Warlock King – the Sword of Shannara.

Along the way, Shea and his cousin Flick
are aided by a pair of Elves who are
excellent at archery, a tough, taciturn
dwarf, and a swordsman who is the
heir to the throne of his people. Meanwhile,
in the land of Callahorn, there’s a mad
king on the throne, with a dark plot to have him replaced, and -

Are you kidding me??!

The Sword of Shannara’s painfully obvious debt to Tolkien sailed over my
head at the time, I’m pleased to say. I remember it as a very enjoyable novel –
quests, adventure, friendship, battles, goodies, baddies, monsters, good clean
fun. But there are an awful lot of similarities to novels of a Hobbitish
persuasion.

To give Terry Brooks his due, Tolkien
wasn’t doing anything new, either - at least, on a conceptual level. I knew of
the world of Middle Earth, but I assumed that stories of warriors, wizards, dwarves,
trolls, elves, dragons and evil kings were common usage for authors, as old as
storytelling itself. And I was right; Tolkien didn’t invent these elements.

He took his inspiration from a
variety of Celtic and Norse legends – as well as Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, much though he denied it (the same way he
denied that The Lord of Rings was an
allegorical retelling of World War Two and the defeat of the Nazis… yeah, pull
the other one). We should never underestimate Robert E Howard’s input, either –
brawnier in tone and narrower in scope, but his heroes, villains and monsters
were forebears of Tolkien’s. Another tip of the hat must also go to Edgar Rice
Burroughs’ ripping yarns.

So, while some riffs and rhythms in
Terry Brooks’ story might seem familiar, the same was true of Tolkien’s work. It’s
not fair to beat up Brooks while ignoring Tolkien as he swans through the schoolyard.

Brooks had an interesting concept for
his Four Lands. The world of the Shannara books is a post-apocalyptic
reclamation by nature of our own Earth, thousands of years after nuclear war
has wiped away modern civilisation. Ruins and part-mechanised monsters the gang
encounter in freakish wastelands point towards this, as well as some of the
ancient legends bandied about by the druids.

Allanon the druid is clearly cut from
the same grey cloth as Gandalf, but he’s a much sterner character, baleful and
surly with his heroes as he guides them through their troubles. I liked him,
but he’s also an ars*hole. It reminded me of when we finally saw the Jedi Council
in The Phantom Menace. Rather than
the Zen-like magicians who know the secret of existence and consciousness we
were expecting, they came across as priggish, irritable civil servants. Allanon
would have fit right in. (Indeed, now that I think on it, there’s a link: Terry
Brooks wrote The Phantom Menace
novelisation back in 1999.)

So, the characters and the story
don’t fit into an exact template. That being said… when Shea is separated from
his mates to complete his journey to the Skull Kingdom alone, after he seems to
fall to his doom down a mountain… and then the gang encounter a dreaded monster,
Valg the serpent, which crawls away after a grand battle and may or may not be
dying… Yeah, you can see where a lot of Brooks’ critics are coming from.

The Sword of Shannara is a cracking romp, and sports some amazing battle
scenes and good old fashioned sword n’ sorcery. I’m very curious to return to
it, to see what it’s like with adult eyes. Having fun and being thrilled never
gets old.

Its sequel, The Elfstones of Shannara(1982), is arguably a better book. It
sees Wil Ohmsford, Shea’s grandson, taking possession of the magical stones in
the title. An enchanted tree called the Ellcrys, which keeps some horrible
demons in a nightmare un-world at bay by maintaining a barrier called the
Forbidding, is growing sick. Wil and his companion Amberle Ellesedil are
charged with a quest to find a new Ellcrys before the barrier completely fails
and the world is overrun by trans-dimensional nasties.

Meanwhile, three absolute bastards
are loose in the Four Lands: the Dagda Mor, an evil wizard; the terrifying and
seemingly invincible Reaper, which kills everyone in its path; and a crafty Shapeshifter
with designs on assassinating the king of the elves. This trio are at the
vanguard of a host of demons who pour through the rift in the Forbidding,
swelling the numbers of a mighty army.

I remember much more about Elfstones than I do about the original Sword of Shannara. Small wonder that
the producers of a forthcoming TV series have focused on this book to start
with; it is strong work, flying on its own merit without any help from more
illustrious fantasy predecessors.

The Reaper sections really stick in
the mind; the principal characters only just escape its clutches several times,
before Wil finally confronts it. Minor characters we’d gotten to like are
snuffed out in its chill clutches, and Brooks suffuses the novel with a
terrible dread at the demon’s approach.

In the Dagda Mor, we have the anti-Allanon.
You know they’re going to have a wizard-off, and you won’t be disappointed when
they throw down with their staffs in the final battle. Add to that a shocking
conclusion, and we’ve got a terrific follow-up, one of the rare few that
outstrip their better-known predecessor.

The Wishsong of Shannara (1985)concludes the original trilogy. It sees Jair and Brin Ohmsford –
the children of the Elfstones’ Wil –
seeking to destroy an evil book, the Ildatch. Brin sings the wishsong in the
title, a powerful magic apparently triggered by vocal cords. Allanon the wizard
takes his 12 steps back into the land of the living after his long sleep in order
to help out. Along the way they must fight the Mord Wraiths, descendants of the
Skull Kingdom’s original Skull Bearers, and a terrible demon called the
Jachyra. They’re aided by the usual retinue of interesting supporting characters,
in particular Garat Jax, the weapons master, and an immense jungle cat. It’s
not as good as the preceding book, but it brings the arc to a satisfying close,
with plenty of fights, sieges, court intrigue and peril.

There’s plenty more in the Shannara
series – fans have had loads to read since Brooks first began to write The Sword as an undergrad in the 1960s.
I did make it through the next four books in the cycle, collectively known as The Heritage of Shannara, but aside from
Walker Boh losing his arm and the Elfstones coming into play again, I’m afraid
a lot of the events overlapped, or are lost to my memory. I do know I was never
bored, though.

The Shannara books deserve to be
rediscovered. Hopefully the new TV series will bring the novels to a new
generation.

Now… I’ve got this great idea for a
fantasy series, based on a dream I had.

The story involves some little guys
going on a quest. They rub their powerful stones to make them glow, and when
they enter the ring of power - it’s magic.

Any agents interested? Contact me at
the usual address.

:: Next time: We recall a writer who
managed some magical feats of his own - making lawyers interesting, and briefly
stirring curiosity about a career in the law. Yes, it’s John “The Gris”
Grisham!